Multi-purpose utility or sport vehicles, such as the JEEP.TM. CHEROKEE.TM. manufactured by Chrysler Corporation or the EXPLORER.TM. manufactured by Ford Motor Company, have become extremely popular among the general public in recent years. Such popularity is due in large measure to the ability of this type of vehicle to not only provide for the carriage of a plurality of vehicle passengers, but also to accommodate relatively large volumes of cargo, luggage or other bulky items when compared with traditional passenger vehicles. In some cases, the cargo carrying capacity of this type of automotive vehicle is enhanced by the selective removability of one or more of the rows of rear seats normally positioned in the vehicle behind the driver's seat (hereinafter referred in this specification as "rear seat assemblies"), and numerous patents have issued directed to attachment mechanisms which safely and conveniently permit such removal. However, an alternative approach to selectively creating more cargo space in an automotive vehicle has been to provide rear seat assemblies that are adapted to have a seatback member of the seat assembly that is pivotally movable from its generally upright passenger occupiable configuration to a relatively forwardly folded unoccupiable configuration and to have the seat cushion member upon which the passenger normally sits movable from its in-use position to a forwardly translated position within the vehicle, thereby to facilitate the loading of cargo into the vehicle on top of the generally flat rear surface of the backrest member. Such cargo capacity can be further enhanced if the rearward seat assembly is moved as aforesaid into a floor well provided in the vehicle, such that the generally flat rear surface of the seatback member is substantially horizontally aligned with an adjacent section of the floor of the vehicle rearwardly disposed to the floor well. All of these solutions are generally known in the prior art.
Notwithstanding these and other developments with respect to rear seat assemblies, the available seat assembly hardware necessary to accommodate the aforesaid composite movement of the seatback member and of the seat cushion member are generally unacceptable from several standpoints. In the first instance, such hardware is unreliable and complex, consisting of many close-fitting interacting machined parts, which factors contribute to their difficulty of production and assembly, and, hence, production costs. Moreover, prior art seat hardware available for this purpose is inconvenient to use, typically requiring two separate control handles to be sequentially actuated by the operator in a designated sequence.
For example, in one known prior art device, it is necessary for the operator to actuate a first control handle to release the seatback member for forward folding of the backrest member. Moreover, it is also necessary for the operator to actuate a second control handle to release the seat cushion member to allow for said forwardly translated motion of the seat cushion member within the vehicle. This is not only inconvenient for those users who understand the operation of the mechanism, but is conceptually difficult to grasp for those who do not understand such operation, or who are not technically minded.
Still more inconveniently, with most two handle prior art seat assemblies, the seatback member must be oriented to a specific generally upright first design position before it is possible to move the seat cushion member to the relatively forwardly translated stowed position, if a substantially flat orientation of the rear surface of the backrest member with the floor of the vehicle is to be achieved.
One seat assembly having a single user handle to control both folding of the seatback member and movement of the seat cushion member to the lowered, forwardly translated stowed position is known in the prior art. However, the mechanism of this seat assembly is not only complex and expensive to manufacture as aforesaid, but remains inconvenient to operate, in that it requires a precise composite movement of the user handle in order to carry out both functions. That is, in order to move the seatback member to its forwardly folded unoccupiable configuration as aforesaid, the user handle must be actuated by sliding the control handle in a first generally upward direction. Following actuation of the user handle in this manner, and after pivotal forward folding movement of the seatback member beyond a specific transition point, the control handle must then be slid by the user in a second, generally downward direction past the initial starting point of the control handle, so as to then permit movement of the seat cushion member to said forwardly translated stowed position. This composite movement of the control handle is not only inconvenient for the user, but also presupposes a familiarity with the manner of operation of the device before smooth operation is readily attainable. Moreover, substantially flat orientation of the rear surface of the backrest member as aforesaid is not automatically assured by this device, but is again dependant upon the starting position of the backrest member prior to movement of the seat cushion member.
From a safety standpoint, it is desirable to re-lock the seat cushion member to the floor member of the vehicle when it has been moved to its forwardly translated stowed position. Such re-locking also prevents or lessens annoying rattling of the seat assembly in this stowed position during movement of the vehicle. Most known prior art seat assemblies do not provide for such re-locking, or where they do, require a further action on the part of the user to effect such re-locking, and are for this reason not adequately convenient or safe.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide an improved movable seat assembly whose operation is simple to understand and which seat assembly is convenient to use.
It is a yet a further object of the present invention to provide an improved movable seat assembly for use in a vehicle, which seat assembly permits the device to be activated so as to permit relatively forwardly folding movement of the seatback member and movement of the seat cushion member to a forwardly translated stowed position within the vehicle, irrespective of the position of the backrest member upon initiating such compound movement.
It is a yet another object of a preferred embodiment of the present invention to provide an improved movable seat assembly for use in a vehicle having a floor member, which assembly is constructed to ensure that the rear surface of the seatback member is substantially horizontally aligned with an adjacent rearwardly disposed section of the floor member when the seat cushion member is in said forwardly translated stowed position, irrespective of the starting position of the backrest member upon initiating forward folding of the seatback member as aforesaid.
It is a yet another object of the present invention to provide an improved movable seat assembly for use in a vehicle having a floor member, which assembly incorporates a first actuation means which, when first activated by the user, permits the seatback member to be forwardly folded by the user over the seat cushion member, thereby to automatically unlock the seat cushion member from rigid attachment to the floor member of the vehicle, so as to allow the seat cushion member to be moved from its in-use position to a forwardly translated stowed position in a continuous motion without the need for the user to himself actuate a second actuation mechanism or otherwise move the first actuation means in another direction.
It is a yet another object of the present invention to provide an improved movable seat assembly for use in a vehicle having a floor member, which assembly incorporates a first actuation mechanism, which mechanism, when first activated by the user, permits the seatback member to be forwardly folded by the user over the seat cushion member, thereby to automatically unlock the seat cushion member from rigid attachment to the floor member, so as to allow the seat cushion member to be moved from its in-use position to a forwardly translated stowed position in a continuous motion without the need for the user to interrupt such continuous motion to actuate a second actuation mechanism or otherwise move the first actuation means.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide an improved movable seat assembly for use in a vehicle having a floor member, which assembly automatically provides for re-locking of the seat cushion member in rigid attachment to the floor member of the vehicle in said forwardly translated stowed position of said seat cushion member without further action by the user.